Sunday, September 10, 2006

More Than A Reliever To Me

Your "New Jersey: Only the Strong Survive" T-shirt isn't cool because 100,000 other people bought it at Urban Outfitters, too.

Papi hit his 48th today, and Tavarez had another good performance in his newfangled starting role. Apparently NESN is going the cable news network graphic route, as they're calling Papi's quest "Road to 51." 51 gets him the all-time Red Sox single-season HR record, and NESN is gonna milk it like a rat in a Mafia basement. I hope Papi gets that record more than anyone, but I hope when it happens, it's not called David Ortiz' CareerBuilder.Com 51st Home Run.

I just saw an ad for an HBO special called "Wait Til Next Year"--about the Chicago Cubs. Hey, that's not fair! We're the truly cursed team! I want those old days back! Note to Michael Kay: I'm kidding.

It's weird, though, how the attention just moves from one team to the next. Get ready, Cubs fans, the casual fans and people who listen to exactly what the media is telling them are all gonna get sick of your team, and even if they break their fake curse, no matter how lovable they are, these same people will find some reason to make fun of them. I won't. Go Cubs. Advice to any Cubs fans out there: When they win, people will tell you that you've turned into what you once despised, and other crap like that. Just know that they wrote those articles ahead of time, and will break them out to seem, I don't know, profound or something. Look, I can write it right now: "Cubs fans wished and wished for this with all their might, and now that they've got it, they don't know what to do with it. They've gained a trophy, but lost an identity..." Ooooooooh, deep! Remember, it's all bullshit, but they'll say it anyway. I don't need to tell you Cub fans to stick with your team, lose or win.

Wow, that's the most I've ever written about the Chicago Cubs. Why did the Cubs team card always have the individual pics as opposed to the group shot every other team had? Maybe that's where the curse really lies. Take a group shot, guys! Come together!

I spent a considerable portion of my youth puzzling over why the Cubs were the only team that didn't take a team photo. Every year back in the 70's, the Topps card set would come out with 23 team photo cards, and then that weird Cubs card that contained the floating head of everybody on the roster. I still have most of them in a box in the closet. Notice Billy Bucks 2nd in on the left in the bottom row of the card you posted...is that Kingman next to him?

I'm probably not the best to comment on this, but I've been to Wrigley several times, and it always feels like a good portion of the crowd falls into the cliche about Cub fans just showing up to party at the ballpark, and not caring all that much about the Cubs actually winning. I'm sure the passionate Cub fans are there too, but they're a lot harder to spot.